First Shift 🏒
For all the impressive comebacks the Stars have had this year, coach Pete DeBoer wouldn’t mind starting ahead and staying ahead.
“It’s not an easy group to coach that way, because why are we waiting to do this in order to respond?” DeBoer asked after the latest incredible comeback in Game 1 against Edmonton Wednesday. “But they’ve stepped up and responded every time we’ve been in that spot and their resiliency as a group is probably the most admirable thing that I have about them.”
The Stars are the only team in league history to overcome a multi-goal deficit in the third period of two different playoff games to win in regulation. They did that in Game 7 against Colorado on the back of Mikko Rantanen’s hat trick. They did it in Game 1 against Edmonton on the back of three power play goals in a span of 5:26. It is an impressive feat, but also in line with what this team has done all season.
The Stars have allowed the first goal in 11 of 14 playoff games and gone 6-5 in those contests. They have started slow and finished strong. They have shown they are never out of games.
“There's a calmness to our group, there always has been,” forward Seguin said. “I've seen it over the last few years, and I don't know where it kind of really started, but we have a lot of belief in us. We never fully think we're out of the game.”
The Stars have a solid leadership core led by captain Jamie Benn and a consistent group of alternate captains that includes Esa Lindell, Roope Hintz, Seguin, Matt Duchene and Wyatt Johnston. By mixing in that many voices, the team has managed adversity very well. That said, a seven-game winless streak to end the regular season also built scar tissue, DeBoer said.
“I think it was important,” DeBoer said. “Every group is different. Some groups want to roll into the playoffs playing great, feeling good about yourself, they need that. I think our group needed a little bit of a shock to the system at that point of the year.”
DeBoer said that adding players like Rantanen, Cody Ceci and Granlund changed the chemistry of the team. He also said the fact that the Stars couldn’t move ahead of Winnipeg and couldn’t be caught by Colorado created a stagnancy.
“We had a new group, we were kind of solidified in our playoff spot, we had a gauntlet of opponents on the docket, knowing you’d have to go through Colorado already in the First Round and probably get Winnipeg in the second and Vegas or Edmonton in the third….So, I think we needed a little bit of a wake-up call late in the season,” DeBoer said. “That shock of, ‘Hey we better have our details in place if we want to survive this.’ So every group is different. Some groups maybe would’ve wilted under that, some groups don’t need that type of shock. I think our group did. I think we were a little bit too comfortable in where we were and how things were going for us.”
Since then, Dallas not only beat the Avalanche and the Jets, but got Jason Robertson back from a lower-body injury and Heiskanen back from knee surgery. So now the Stars are hardened by their experiences and potentially refreshed by the fact that a couple of key players have not been physically worn down.
“I think I’m trying to hit my stride,” said Robertson. “That’s what excites me, excites everyone in the locker room. I’m going to use that extra motivation, everyone else, to improve my game and get a little extra jump and hopefully hit that stride.”
DeBoer said he has learned that patience is key in situations like this.
“You try and be patient, you try and have composure,” he said. “You try and be the calming voice in the room. Until you lose seven or eight in a row, it’s like Mike Tyson, right? Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the nose. So, definitely I think it was a lot of work this year down the stretch. Trying to keep the train on the tracks and when it got off the tracks, get it back on as quickly as possible without losing it. We pulled just about every trick we had in the bag out to try and keep it going.”
And now, they are seeing benefits from that.
